Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 12
Mechanics 2: Linear and
Rotational Dynamics
The Force is what gives a Jedi his power.
It's an energy field created by all living things.
It surrounds us and penetrates us.
It binds the galaxy together.
— Obi-Wan Kenobi in
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
(1977)
Chapter 11 was about linear kinematics—how to describe the motion of
object, without concerning ourselves with the “cause” of the motion, its
orientation, or how we might go about simulating that object on a com-
puter. The main goals of this chapter are to address those three topics.
•
Section 12.1
identifies and quantifies the “cause” of motion, force, and
presents three physical laws formalized more than 400 years ago by
Isaac Newton in his masterwork the Principia.
•
Section 12.2
discusses a few particularly important and simple types
of forces.
•
Section 12.3
introduces momentum and presents the important rela-
tionship between force and momentum.
•
Section 12.4
is about collisions and impulses, which are large forces
that act for short durations.
•
Section 12.5
considers the rotation of objects and the angular analogs
of the linear concepts introduced up to this point.
•
Section 12.6
turns to matters of implementation, looking at some
basic problems that a digital simulation needs to address. It gives an
overview of how contemporary real-time rigid body simulations solve
them.
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